William Ginn here was the son of George Ginn of Bermondsey - see post of 4th November 2018 .
In September 1702, at the age of about 15, he was apprenticed to John Thompson of the Feltmaker's Company. He was to train as a Hatter. William was literate and the original indenture survives (below)
I could not find anything about John Thompson until 2021, researching in London in any period is not easy.. Thompson was born in Manchester (to a Feltmaker) in the late 1660s and came into London as an apprentice Feltmaker in 1682. By the 1690s he had set himself up as a Master and had acquired premises in the parish of St Bride (Bridget) in Fleet Street. This surprised me because I knew that the feltmaking trade (which needed a large supply of water) was centred in Southwark and Bermondsey where it used the Thames.
But the City of London that I worked in as a lawyer nearby forty years ago, is not the City (save for some famous landmarks like St Pauls) that Bill Ginn here knew. For I had reckoned without the Fleet River.
The Fleet (which means "flood" and it flooded a lot over the years) was, by the 1600s, polluted and stagnant. But before the Great Fire of London in 1666 it had been used by the Hatters. After the fire, with the City ruined and being rebuilt, Charles II ordered the Fleet to be cleared, widened and even made navigable for barges as far as Holborn Bridge. So that was carried out and the Hatters came back, but Londoners are stubborn and within a few short years the watercourse (it was now known as the Fleet Ditch) was polluted again.
Jonathan Swift (who wrote "Gulliver's Travels" ) also wrote a satirical poem " A description of a City shower" in 1710 and mentions the Fleet in rain thus
Sweepings from butchers' stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood
In 1720, the historian Strype in his "Survey of London" walked the area and said
"Bridelane cometh out of Fleetstreet by St Bridget's Churchyard which, with a turning passage by Bridewel and the [Fleet] Ditchside, falleth down to Woodmongers Wharfs by the Thames. This Lane is of Note for the many Hatters there inhabiting. It took its Name from St Bridget's Church unto which there is a passage up Stone Steps...
Fleet Ditch
William Ginn would have become a Freeman of the Feltmaker's Company in about 1709, the Feltmaker's records for that and the few years following do not survive, but Christ's Hospital say that he did become one, though I doubt that he ever practised the trade other than as a journeyman, that is, not on his own account.
William Ginn married a Catherine (likely surname Foster) in about 1712. I cannot find any marriage entry, it may have been wrongly transcribed. The Fleet record transcription of a William "Ginn" marrying a Catherine in 1707 is wrong- the name was "Gunn".
The first records we have of William and Catherine is in 1713, when had a daughter Mercy at St James Clerkenwell in Islington, then they had a son William at St Bride's Fleet Street in 1714.
There is no evidence that they lived in St Brides, thought it tempting to think that Bill was working as a Feltmaker there,but shortly after this, certainly by 1716, they were in St Bartholomew the Less Parish where they lived until they died.
Unfortunately, whilst the burial records for this parish survive for the period, the baptisms do not. So while I have three names of children who survived infancy, all sons, there could have been more, though likely not more than one or two.
William does not appear in the Land Tax for Farringdon Ward Without, for that is where he lived, so I must assume the family rented rooms. That Ward included St Brides and, frankly, if he continued to work as a Feltmaker he was never more than a half mile walk to the Fleet Ditch.
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Hatters were not allowed to "hawk" ie sell hats, but some did and I query whether he always worked as a Feltmaker. For there is an interesting record in the old Bailey records (1721) which is likely him, although the parish given for him is incorrect, so I cannot be sure. But you will note that the chap sold hats (rather than made them) and given what later happened to this family it is probably Bill. It could have been that the offence was committed in Bow and the record is in error.
The jury clearly thought that the offence was in doubt, given the punishment, but the court judgment would have ruined the guy's reputation and his job prospects.
William and Catherine had a good number of children and then Catherine died at St Barts in 1723. William followed the next year aged about 37.
So here we have a number of orphans, none of them older than 10. They were split up, likely never saw or ever heard from each other again, but they are reunited 300 years later here. What should have logically happened at such a time to these kids is that they go to the "Parish Overseer of the Poor" who would then in the nature of things negelect them and they likely die within a year or two. That is not however what happened - a miracle occurred.. The story will be continued over the next couple of posts.
William and Catherine had at least five children
William - born in 1714. He seems to have survived infancy but at the moment I cannot trace him for sure. I would assume that the parish took him like they did his brothers and he may, just may, be the William Ginn I have in Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Marines in 1745. Work continues.
Mercy - born in 1713 and died in infancy at St Barts in 1716.
George - born in 1716. See next post.
Samuel - born in 1717. See later post.
Foster - 1722 - died infancy at St Barts
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